Somewhere around 2.3 I lost my swing timer out of quartz - I just can't get it to appear. =( I have reloaded and tried all manner of adjustments, even though I am pretty clueless. It's not necessary as prot, but I want it back since I have amassed enough dps gear to have some fun with [item]Despair[/item].

Any ideas? (sorry for hijack)

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Sorry if I came off hostile. I didn't mean to >.O

My experience with quartz was that it was just 'too much'. And at the time, several months ago, when I tested it versus LD50_abar, quartz was actually wrong on swing timing when using slam. xD LD50 is also specifically a swing timer, nothing more, no bells and whistles. Those were my reasons for suggesting it (since i haven't seen anyone else do so xD )

Just to make sure... you updated the addon, right?

yeah, several times.

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Move to LD50, you won't come back, I never did... :-D

Cat's Edge vs. Season 4 Sword for pve.....debate? O.o

uh oh, lets look at them, then I'll Edit this post to reflect:
[item]Cataclysm's Edge[/item] vs. Brutal Gladiator's Greatsword - Item - World of Warcraft

Cat's still kills it in terms of pure damage, due to the ignore armor and str it gives over the other. But if you need the hit or crit, the s4 looks to be a pretty strong alternative. Not to mention having a higher top end, and a slower speed means it'll hit like a dump truck, and it has it's own share of ignore armor. Just a lot of itemization used on resil and stam.

I think if you have Cat's you can probably safely keep it, but if you don't yet, but can grab s4, do eeeet.

Just looked at it from maxdps.com's sheet and it's got the s4 16 dps higher than the cat's, with my numbers plugged in. I guess s4 is the clear upgrade. Someone with a dps spreadsheet can probably do it better than maxdps though, but I'm fairly certain a 16dps increase will be a net increase regardless of how you throw it around. s4 > cat's edge =(

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Slower weapon = more DPS from slams and mortal strikes.

Also, while the S4 "wastes" itemization points on an extra 17stamina and 33 resilience, remember that the more stats on an item, the better it spends its itemization. S4 has +hit, +crit, +str and +arp, Cat's just has +arp and +str. 25str and 237arp = 58itemization points, 50crit and 19hit = 69itemization points.

That and you can't ignore the fact that S4 has 2.3dps in white damage over the cat's

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that's what I was thinking ebs. good call.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

*note* I am running under the assumption that the people reading my post will be in mostly t6 content, and not have access to the amazing polearm of awesome awesomeness or be an orc.

I have also noticed that the Brut glads sword will be an upgrade over cat's.

Going a bit further (not just counting points), there are a few advantages over cats:

1. Armor pen on everything else can get you in to negatives in some fights, the extra 200 can easily be made up by gear that:

2. You can replace your extra hit garbage with big AP bonuses, or armor pen. Seriously, getting away from Naj`tabi being a warrior's boot of choice, or getting rid of your master assassin's ring for something with strength is awesometastic.

3. Gem for strength! Think about how much str you lose to pick up 50CR? Just seems to fit with the low crit on t6.

4. Its slower. Your raid leader can put you back in the drums group. Do I really need to say anything else about this?

Now mine is just a question of curiousity but what would be better for slam spec dps. The Blade of Harbingers - Item - World of Warcraft or Jin'rohk, The Great Apocalypse - Item - World of Warcraft

hrm, tough call, if you're an orc i'd probably go with blade, but if you're already sitting in a lot of crit, and not an orc, jin'rohk looks plausible O_o.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

My first inclination was to go with the blade on both accounts; higher ilvl (138 vs 146), more dps stats allocated and although the AP was a little lower, the crit and haste more than made up for it.

Then I realized the weapon speeds, and said "woah woah woah, the 3.7 speed will make for bigger MSes and slams!"

Then I looked at the damage ranges:
The 3.7spd only does 5dmg less on the low end, and 7dmg less on the high end, each swing. Average of 6dmg difference each swing.

Finally, considering the axe spec vs sword spec: well, axe spec for imp slam is usually the better choice, right? (Note, this is theoretical as I've never tried either :-x)

My take: Blade's better for everyone, but if I had Jin'rohk I would look elsewhere to spend my badges until there wasn't anything else left to get.

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Hey guys ! Been watching this thread for a while and I must say it's one of the best source of theory for anyone wanting to be a dps war

Now for my question: I'm a 33-28 slam spec pve arms war decently geared got za 2h sword, hit capped 1714ap and 36%crit in zerker stance. Heres my armory for details :
The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm really confused about armor pen crit and haste rating. I know that slam can't be used with a lot of haste since it would screw the rotation so I've been wondering which shoulder to use t5 dps shoulders, swiftsteel shoulders or the pauldrons of Gruesome fate. T5 shoulders have decent crit and hit (37,58%crit, capped hit) with them. The pauldrons of Gruesome fate make me loose almost 1.5% crit but I would still be hit capped and gain 150armor pen to be at ( 504armorPen). And finally the swiftsteel shoulders would give me some haste (my wep would be at 3.5 ) I would gain some APower still be hit capped but would loose crit to be at 36.35% crit.

Thx for reply!

Either the t5 or the gruesome fate would be best for you, the swiftsteel really aren't that good.

My opinion for you right now though is to find ways to boost your AP more, 36% crit is more than enough at this point, you want more and more AP, the more you can get the better. Armor Penetration is a great stat, but it is always better to get AP over ArP until you have insane levels of gear.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

thx a lot man

Late on the game being in DPS and reading this but DUDE. have you not read the other parts of this site? if you have, you would know, especially from what Xav has written: YOUR THREAT IS NEVER "FINE" - It only stands to be improved. the 4% quoted it physical damage so it is only ever 4% of the threat from damage.

If you want to be blatantly insulting, go somewhere else. your contribution was crap and if you are questioning the author, please have some EXCEPTIONALLY solid stats and specs with proof to back it up

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Regarding weapon speeds and haste for arms:

The ideal situation is to end up with a hasted, flurried, weapon speed of 2.5 seconds. This means that your cycle of autoattack+slam takes about 3 seconds.

There are two positive benefits of this:
1) The correct time to slam comes up at roughly the time when your GCD is up, making it easy to time. In fact, if your attack speed is right at 2.5 seconds, you can simply spam buttons, going slam, ms, slam, ww, slam, ms, slam, shout, repeat, and the timing will just work! (However, you need flurry to not fall off).

2) A slower cycle will result in less special attacks. For example, if your hasted attack speed is actually 3.0, then you end up like:

0: Auto/Slam
0.5: slam finished
1.5: MS
3.5 Auto/slam
4: Slam finished
5: WW
7: Auto/slam
7.5: Slam Finished
8: MS
10.5: Auto/Slam
11: slam finished
12: Shout
14: Auto/slam

Your cycle includes the same number of abilities but now takes 14 seconds instead of 12. So while your slams, ms's and whirlwinds are a bit bigger (but not the full %age bigger for stuff other than slam due to normalization), you get less of them. This results in sigificantly less dps AND a harder cycle to manage.


Therefore, you actually want to get your attack speed to pretty much exactly 2.5, to be optimal. You should have 15% flurry haste with 90-95% uptime given sufficient crit. Additional haste effects are also beneficial, for example, with a 3.5 speed weapon like Cat's Edge or the badge Axe, 15% flurry brings the speed to 3.04. To bring the speed to 2.5 you need 21.6% haste, or like 340 rating or so. Essentially, any normal amount of haste is fine.

My raid groups tend to contain 3-4 drums users, so I get 80 extra haste rating most of the time.

Dragonspine trophy's value and effect on how much haste you should use depends on things like weapon speed and wether you have drums up:

Dragonspine trophy (325 haste proc). If you use this, then you will be at around the perfect speed with a 2.5 weapon when it procs (and not when it doesnt). If you use dragonspine trophy then you shouldnt use haste items!! Alternately, with Dragonspine trophy and a slower weapon like 3.7 speed, you actually have room to benefit from Drums of battle plus a small amount more haste (about 40-50 more haste beyond the drums, to be precise.

Optimal amounts of haste rating IN ADDITION to the dragonspine proc, to bring weapons of various speeds to 2.5 seconds:

3.4 speed: Some of the dragonspine haste is wasted. Especially if you have drums, dont use Dragonspine with a weapon of this speed.
3.5 speed: ~18 haste (i.e., if you use drums, youre wasting a lot of haste).
3.6 speed: ~72 haste (Drums covers it, dont use haste items).
3.7 speed: ~127 haste (Drums + 47 more haste from items).
3.8 speed: ~182 haste (Drums + 102 more from items).

Dragonspine is a bit suboptimal for fast weapons, like 3.4-3.5 speed, especially when also using drums. Dragonspine is very good with slower weapons like 3.6+. However, you must react to the shifts in your swing speed and not screw up the slam timing when it procs.


Another option is haste potions. A haste potion is like an on demand Dragonspine proc, with an extra 75 haste also. Haste potions are best with 3.7+ speed weapons, or 3.6 and no drums.

If you use dragonspine, you should time haste potions to occur when dragonspine has not procced.

Also there is Heroism/Bloodlust. Ideally you want this at 20% for executing, as executing becomes good if you can stack sufficient haste effects together (otherwise continuing the slam rotation is best). During heroism/bloodlust, any speed weapon will become 2.5 or under.


Personally, I use Solarian's Sapphire and Shard of Contempt, and not dragonspine. This means that I can use haste items + drums without having times when they are being ineffective. When using Dragonspine you tend to want weapons to be as slow as possible because youll be at 2.5 speed anyway during dragonspine procs, and getting bigger hits and slams. When NOT using dragonspine it tends to be best to use a weapon with speed in the 3.4-3.5 area, and haste becomes a reasonable stat, reducing the time of your cycle.


For execute phase, stacking flurry + bloodlust + haste potion gives a very fast attack speed supporting executes each GCD. For example, 15% flurry + 30% bloodlust + 480 haste rating from potion +drums gives a weapon speed of 51.3% of normal, turnign a 3.5 speed weapon into 1.79. With the haste from T6 belt and boots, its 1.74. When the haste potion runs out it goes to 2.16 (with the two t6 pieces).

Once bloodlust runs out you should definitely go back to standard slam rotation, but while your speed is very fast like that, exceuting each GCD can be good.

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Can I get a follow-up on this?

I'm a ZA level raider using Blade of the Harbingers. I've always used the heroic strike build because the Slam build looked difficult to me, especially since my latency was consistently inconsistent.
Recently I've moved and got a more stable internet connection and tried the slam build a bit. It's gonna take some getting used to, especially on mobile fights.

How much is the difference in personal DPS between the two builds? Keep in mind that it's impossible to slam perfectly, you can never do the rotation perfectly on time, whereas a HS build is much easier to play and more forgiving to moving around.

This is the build I used when I was HS'ing.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

even if you're off by a small margin, with a swing timing mod, you can be within .2 seconds of your white swing.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Yeah that doesn't really answer my question.